Catch My Fall
by Patricia de Lioncourt
Summary: When a sinkhole opens up in the middle of downtown St. Canard, swallowing only Negaduck and Gosalyn, leaving the latter injured, the duckling is left with one choice and one choice only: work with Negaduck to get back to the surface.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Darkwing Duck. It belongs to its respective owners. No money made here.

 **Author's Notes:** Written for hc-bingo, using the prompt "forced to rely on enemy/rival." I took some inspiration from some things, so check out the End Notes for further explanation—don't want to spoil anything for you. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

 **Catch My Fall**

Gosalyn—or Quiverwing Quack, as she should be called, given how she was dressed—wasn't sure how it had happened. One minute, She and Darkwing were fighting Negaduck in the middle of downtown St. Canard, and the next… well…

There had been a _boom_. A loud one, one that had shook her right to her teeth. Then, a loud _crack_. Finally, in a whirl of black, red, yellow, green, and purple, Gosalyn and Negaduck had fallen into the large sinkhole that had opened underneath them. She vaguely recalled her dad, Darkwing, yelling her name—her superhero name, of course—just as she had lost her footing. She remembered falling, facing toward the sky, watching as it got farther and farther away. Then, nothing. She guessed she must have been knocked out. But now, she was blinking and groaning, trying to will her body into consciousness. Finally, she got her eyes to open.

She registered light first, a very small amount coming from who-knew-where. Then, she realized she was in a great deal of pain, but—bright side—it was all concentrated to her ankle. Probably broken. Fantastic. And then she realized that she was staring down the barrels of a rifle. Probably should've focused on that first.

"Freeze, kid," Negaduck's voice growled. It took a minute, but once Gosalyn was able to uncross her eyes and look beyond the rifle, she saw that he was—obviously—the wielder. And he appeared uninjured. Great.

"H-hey, now," Gosalyn chuckled, trying to push up a bit on her elbows. Cold metal being pressed into the tip of her beak made her lay back once more. "Answer a few questions before you blow me to smithereens?"

She could have sworn she saw his finger tighten around the trigger, just shy of pulling it. She gulped.

"Look, I'm no danger to you. Look at my ankle. Broken, right? It feels like it. So, what's a few answers gonna hurt?"

A breath of a moment passed, and Negaduck relaxed his hold on the gun. He brought it down next to him, barrels down, and leaned on it like a big walking stick.

"Sure. Got nothing better to do."

Gosalyn took this as her cue to sit up a bit, which she did gingerly. Her ankle hurt, _a lot_. Negaduck seemed to eye her, roving down to her wound, before meeting her gaze again. She tried to appear not-helpless, but it was looking less and less likely. However, she pushed on, gesturing to the large, almost black hole they were sitting in—the sky above barely a dot. She noticed that a crude torch had been fashioned, lit, and was now lying a few feet out of her reach. That explained the light.

"So… what happened? How did you do this?" she asked.

Negaduck rolled his eyes. "You think _I_ did this? Then why would I get myself stuck down here too?"

Good point. Gosalyn realized her head felt a bit swimmy, and she was going to blame that dumb assumption on that.

"Okay, so if you didn't cause this, then who—or what—did?"

"Way I figure, it's Moliarty. Overheard him boasting about some 'big plan' to get back at Dipwing Dork for some plan of his that got foiled. That guy's usually all talk, no bite, but… then again, I am trapped down in the center of the earth with Dipwing's little protégé."

"Wait, so you're really stuck? Have you tried a grappling hook?" she asked.

"How hard did you hit your head? Of course I tried! I left my extra-long rope at home. And don't even bother trying yours," Negaduck said, leaning off his gun, lifting it just a tad off the ground. He had obviously seen her grope for her quiver. "I searched it. Interesting stuff, but my rope was longer, and it still came falling back."

Gosalyn took this all in, gazing skyward. She knew that Darkwing would be going crazy trying to find her, trying to figure out a way to get her back to safety. But that was looking unlikely. Taking another glance around, she caught sight of a part of the hole that seemed a bit darker shadowed than the others. A tunnel opening. She glanced back at Negaduck. Now came the hard part. With her ankle broken, she would need someone to help her splint it. (First aid, the one class that had actually been useful to her.) And then, she would still need help moving around. Carrying around a broken, even splinted, bone would be quickly tiring if she wasn't going to have a shoulder to lean on, and as much as she hated to admit it, Negaduck was literally the only option available.

He would kill her at any given opportunity. Probably the only reason he hadn't done so while she was out was so he could see the life leave her eyes. She couldn't trust him. But she needed him.

"So, how are we going to get out of here?"

None of those words were mistakes. Negaduck chuckled, lifting the rifle up a bit more. Gosalyn reminded herself that she had finally— _finally_ , after four years—convinced her Dad to let her fight beside him as Quiverwing Quack and that, as Quiverwing, she was going to stand her ground. Or sit it, as the case may be. Either way, heroes don't back down.

"What do you mean 'we'?" he growled, leveling the gun with her eyesight once more.

She refused to stare at it. Instead, she swallowed and acted like it wasn't there.

"You don't have food or water, do you?"

He scoffed. "You don't either."

"Well, not in my quiver, no. But that's all you searched, wasn't it? Because a bow is my only weapon."

He sneered, cocking the gun. "Hand it over, runt, and maybe I won't leave you as a splatter over this place."

"Or… or! Maybe you could use an extra pair of hands?"

Negaduck snorted. "An extra pair of hands? From someone who can't even stand? Really?"

"Do you really think that a giant sinkhole in the middle of downtown St. Canard was Moliarty's only plan? Are you absolutely positive there aren't traps galore down here?"

"For Dipwing," Negaduck argued, but Gosalyn heard the doubt in his voice. Her Dad's training was paying off.

"Who isn't here," she stressed. "But you are. Hey, though, suit yourself. Go in there without an extra pair of eyes. I'm sure you'll be _fine_."

Negaduck glared at her so hard down that his eyes were going bloodshot. Finally, with a sigh, he lowered the rifle. "One wrong move, squirt…"

Gosalyn waved off the hanging sentence. "Yeah, yeah. Splattered over the sinkhole. I got it. First, we've got to splint my ankle, otherwise I'll hurt too much to keep a clear mind. Not to mention worrying over balancing on one leg."

He arched a brow at her before reaching into his cape and withdrawing two wooden boards—each with nails in them, duct tape, and some bubble wrap. He tossed the stuff down within her reach. Now it was her turn to arch a brow.

"Um, Negaduck…"

He rolled his eyes. "All right." He tossed down a hammer.

The Mallard Menace made no move to help, instead popping a squat on a nearby rock, keeping a close eye on the young superheroine. She ignored him, instead grabbing up the hammer and painstakingly removing every single nail from both boards. According to her watch—thankfully not broken in the fall—it took her about fifteen minutes to remove the total of thirty-six nails from both boards. Whatever Negaduck had been planning to use them for previously, she decided that she didn't want to know. The boards were still very usable, despite all the nail holes, and the next part—actually putting together the splint—took very little time at all. However, it hurt. A lot. Every time she moved to tape the boards—which were held off her purpling ankle by the layer of bubble wrap—she ended up hissing in pain, causing her hands to lose their grip on the boards. Three tries later, Negaduck finally growled in aggravation.

He hopped off his rock, moving to sit right at Gosalyn's ankle. She jumped, and he sighed.

"Aren't you the one trying to convince me that we need to work together to get out of here?"

"Doesn't mean I trust you."

Something happened. Negaduck's eyes flickered, but not in the usual flash-of-rage way. In fact, if Gosalyn didn't know better, she would have sworn that he looked a little… hurt, by her statement. But in the next second, his usual scowl and angered gaze were back, and he yanked the tape from her hands.

"This'll hurt," he said, holding the boards in place.

The sound of the tape coming loose from its roll made her jump again, and Negaduck did her a great favor by not acknowledging it. He brought the tape down, wrapping it as tightly as it should be—at least he wasn't being malicious. But Gosalyn whole body racked with pain, and it took every ounce of her resolve not to try and scramble away from him. When he finished, he looked up, another one of those stupid brows arching at her. But, this time, he seemed genuinely surprised.

"Done a lot of stuff, but I've never brought a superhero to tears. Point for Negaduck," he said, pushing himself to his feet.

She reached to wipe her eyes, just realizing that they were wet. "It hurt," she said, glad to hear no tears in her voice.

"Well, it wasn't gonna tickle," he said, thrusting out a hand.

It took her a second, but, slowly, she put her own hand in and let him pull her to her feet. It hurt to put a lot of weight on her hurt ankle, and it seemed that she could only use that leg to keep her from losing balance and falling over. Negaduck shook his head, turning and gathering up his items, shoving them inside his cape. He took up the torch he had lit, holding it in his right hand. He moved to stand on Gosalyn's right, wrapping his left arm under hers. Caught both off guard and off balance, she fell into her father's devilish double.

"Um, I'm fine, really," she protested, trying to push off of him with minimal touching. It wasn't going well.

"You might be able to stand, but you were clearly hurtin' too bad to move. Or should I just pull my rifle back out and chance things?"

"Fine," Gosalyn said, feeling more than a little dejected as the two began to move.

Negaduck was walking normally, essentially just dragging a half-hopping Gosalyn along. She tried to right herself any way that she could, knowing that the weaker she appeared, the more reason he was going to have to ditch her. In fact, she was surprised she had made it this far. Not only that, she was shocked that Negaduck looked no grumpier than usual. She managed to get herself into a kind of working rhythm with Public Enemy Number Two—Dr. Slug just would _not_ be beat—so that she was carrying a little bit more of her weight. In a matter of moments, they reached the mouth of the cave, and Gosalyn managed to halt Negaduck before he moved—recklessly—ahead.

"What?" he snapped.

"You really weren't going to check for traps? At the very first place they would easily be put? Really?"

He didn't answer her, but she could hear him grinding his teeth together behind his closed beak. He lifted the torch, and they two of them began to gaze all about the entrance—ceiling, floor, and walls. He brought the torch lower, and it was then that Gosalyn caught it.

"There. Trip wire," she said.

The line was as thin and as clear as a spider's silk. Had she not made him stop, they most certainly would have hit it, triggering whatever trap that was connected. She wanted so badly to gloat, being her father's daughter, but she held her tongue. Her situation was tenuous enough.

"Right," he grumbled, moving carefully over the wire before helping her do the same. "Guess you being here isn't such a bad idea… so far."

Hooray for small victories.

##

It was slow going down the tunnel, especially considering what little light they had to illuminate their way. Traps were going to be extra hard to spot. Negaduck seemed intent on getting them to the end—if there even was one—of this cave as quickly as possible, which left Gosalyn hopping faster than she ever had before in her life. And even then, it was agonizingly slow.

Worse still was the fact that it was practically silent. Sure, there were a few exertion grunts from Negaduck, and the sound of her webbed-feet slapping the ground when she hopped, or scraping up dirt the times when Negaduck just drug her along. She was far too used to her dad, or Launchpad. Both of whom were hard to keep quiet for too long. Launchpad was just a general lover of chit-chat, often employing games like I Spy with her on things like stake-outs. And if it got too quiet around Darkwing for too long, he was liable to just start narrating for himself. Gosalyn often found herself wishing for silence with her family.

Now, it was going to drive her insane.

What was this guy, her Dad's double—her Dad's evil double—thinking about? Was he still planning the best way to kill her, the gimp he was being forced to drag along? Was he planning to rob her of all of her items, leaving her stranded and likely for dead? Or maybe it was something innocuous, like a song stuck in his head.

She couldn't take it anymore.

"So, uh, how long do you think this tunnel goes on for?" she asked.

"How should I know?" he answered.

That exhausted that subject. Gosalyn cast her gaze up, as far as she could see by the light. They were several, several feet into the tunnel now. So far, the initial trap had been it. Surely Moliarty wasn't _that_ confident in his methods.

"Wonder what Moliarty's game plan is here," she muttered.

To this, Negaduck huffed out a growl. "Didn't take you as one for small talk. Guess I was wrong."

Gosalyn arched a brow. "When would I have ever shown you that I _wasn't_ interested in small talk?"

Negaduck's gaze slid sideways, his brow furrowed. He shrugged, causing Gosalyn to bob a little in his grasp. "Just not how I pictured you, away from Dipwing," he muttered.

She gazed up at him, eyes narrowed. Why in the world had the Mallard Menace been picturing her _away_ from her dad?

"Were you planning to kidnap me sometime soon?" she asked.

"What?" he all but shouted. He appeared momentarily shocked by his own voice before lowering it, adding, "What are you talking about?"

"Well, why else did you think about me, outside of my—um, mentor's influence?"

She could hear his teeth gritting together. He grumbled, but nothing intelligible. Gosalyn, too busy trying to read his mind with nothing but her sheer willpower, failed to see the little rock in her good foot's pathway. She tripped, slipping from his hold. She fully expected the impact of the ground on her beak any second, but it didn't happen. Instead, lightning fast, Negaduck swooped, caught her, and pulled her upright with a muttered, "Careful."

Did Public Enemy Number Two just tell her to be _careful_? Did she fall into a regular hole, or an alternate dimension hole? It took just a second or two longer before she realized that he was staring at her, as if waiting for her to confirm she was all right.

"I'm good," she said slowly.

He nodded, wrapping an arm around her once more. Gosalyn's mind was boggled. How much did Negaduck care about the—admittedly—small supply of food and water she had with her? He was the Most Fiendish Terror, so surely it wasn't that much.

Lost in her thoughts, she failed to see the trip-switch on the ground, until it was too late. An audible click sounded about the cave, and she regained presence of mind enough to shout, "Knives!" before Negaduck threw them both to the ground.

Above them, a sea of blades flew back and forth, just narrowly missing them—so long as they hugged the floor. Keeping his face to the ground, Negaduck muttered, "Belly crawl, kid, or you're gonna get a heck of a lot shorter!"

Gosalyn didn't need to be told twice. Using her elbows—and the one good foot—she followed after Negaduck as they progressed, carefully, forward. The only time they dared to move their heads was to check to see how far the knives went. Like most of their other progress, this was slow going as well. However, before long, the two of them were clear of the blades. They both pulled themselves up into a seated position, sighing, and moved a few more feet away for good measure. Beside her, she heard Negaduck give a soft hiss.

There was a cut in the sleeve of his right upper arm. And it was bleeding. She leaned forward.

"A blade got you. We need to clean and bandage the wound."

She really was getting her mileage out of that first aid class. She reached out to take his arm, to gauge how deep the wound was, when he yanked away from her.

"I'm fine," he snapped. "Just a flesh wound."

Gosalyn was already taking out her "bandage" arrow, tapping it on the ground to get the pouch on the blade-end to open. She shook her head.

"It could get infected," she protested. "What good is it gonna do us to have both of us gimpy?"

He glanced over at the cut, still seeping blood through the fabric of his shirt and jacket. "And, what, are you gonna use your precious water to clean it?"

"Yes," Gosalyn said, reaching inside her cape.

She knew that this was probably a bad idea. After all, his wound would probably be all right without using some of her water reserves. But she knew that she hadn't lied to him. If one of his arms became infected and essentially unusable, and her with her broken ankle, then they were as good as dead when or if they made another mistake. She also knew that now that she was revealing her secret pocket-hidden-within-a-pocket in her cape, she could be as good as dead anyway. But hearing Negaduck hiss as he tried to touch the cut made her mind up. She reached in and withdrew a bottle of water.

He arched a brow at her. "No way. Where did you have that?"

"Let me bandage your wound, and I'll tell you."

His beak parted, moments away from protesting, when he sighed. Grumbling, he offered her the injured arm. She managed to uncuff the sleeve of his jacket, and the crimson shirt underneath, and roll them both up over the wound without touching it. Unscrewing the cap, she began to slowly pour the water, stopping every so often to allow the possible impurities to drain.

"So?" he huffed.

Gosalyn readied the bandage, shrugging. "This cape was made by a friend of a friend. He managed to invent this pocket that can hide inside another pocket without being detected. I have no idea how it works, before you ask. But it does."

She wrapped the bandage around the wound, tying it off.

"What was the friend's name?"

She grinned. "Nice try. Like I'd remember. Something science-y is all I recall. All done."

She let Negaduck go, and began to hold her breath. He stood, and she knew that everything hung on his next decision. After all, she had just revealed where the water—and the food—she had was on her person. Would he kill her now? She was no longer necessary, truth be told. Her fingers wrapped around the tip of her bow—slung over one shoulder—while her other hand twitched, ready to go for an arrow at a moment's notice. But the Mallard Menace only stretched his back, then, with barely a backwards glance, he offered his hand.

"We should get moving again. Got a feeling some of these traps aren't gonna be as simple as that flying knife one."

It took her a second to realize that this wasn't a trick or a trap. He really was just offering her a hand up. She blinked, took his hand, and in the next moment, they were making their slow progress once more. When she thought he wasn't looking, she took a second to stare at him. Was this really the Negaduck she had known as an evil SOB for all those years? How many hospitals or convalescent homes had she watched him blow up or try to blow up? She once witnessed him taking pot-shots at a family of adorable bunnies in the park.

So… why was she still alive?

##

It felt like years, but, finally, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Literally. The tunnel ended in what appeared to be a town of some sort. They approached slowly—which wasn't much of a differed pace for them, really. They were no sooner at the entrance of the town—also, the exit of the tunnel—when a volley of rocks launched at them. They leapt behind a lip of the tunnel's exit. Negaduck glared down at her.

"I thought you were supposed to help me spot hidden traps!" he snarled.

"There were none!" she snapped right back at them.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are, _Darkwing_ ," rang the nasally voice of Moliarty himself.

"That's a killing offense," Negaduck muttered.

"He didn't see us. He doesn't know it's you. He's assuming."

"Well, you know what happens when you assume, don't you?"

Gosalyn rolled her eyes. Like she hadn't heard that one in the orphanage a million times. Another shot of rocks, some dust slapping them in the face as they flew by, stopped her from answering.

"Who throws _rocks_? There are ways to kill your enemies that are so much more fun than _rocks_."

"Not the point, at the moment," she noted.

"Right. So… I'm thinking rocket launcher."

"Of course you are. Actually, I was thinking of a subtler approach."

"Negaduck doesn't do anything subtle."

"Trust me, I know. But we don't know how much rocket-launching this cavern could take. Look, Moliarty is always trying to conquer the surface world, right? So he probably has one of his drill vehicles or something else around here. I'm not going to be able sneak around on this ankle, and you won't be able to either dragging me around with you."

"So, you're suggesting that I leave you here? After dragging you all the way down that stupid tunnel?"

He didn't seem happy about that idea, which gave Gosalyn a flicker of hope for her real plan. She shook her head.

"Not really. I'll shoot my arrows from here, distract Moliarty. Meanwhile, you sneak down and around, incapacitate Moliarty, and then we'll drill to the surface. Sound good?"

Negaduck looked mildly shocked. "You're… trusting me to go without you? And come back?"

She really was, which was odd. Again, she didn't have to let him know that. She gestured, instead, to her ankle.

"Don't really have a choice, do I?"

His brow furrowed, and it seemed as if he was suddenly interested in studying the broken bone. Finally, though, he looked up and gave a curt nod. He sat her with her back against the lip of the entrance. She nocked an arrow.

"I'll give you some cover fire. It's a fireworks arrow. As soon as I fire it, go."

He nodded again, pulling a small, handheld chainsaw from within his cape. Gosalyn suppressed a sigh. This was starting out to be not so promising. She aimed up and let the arrow loose. Negaduck was off in a flash. She heard the fireworks pop and fizzle, seeing just a tad of their colored lights on the floor of the tunnel. She smiled when she heard some Moliarty's people hiss. She counted to five then launched another arrow, not even caring what this one did. It was followed by some coughing, so it had to be a gas of some kind. Another five count, then another arrow.

"Stop that!" Moliarty yelled up at the tunnel, and Gosalyn had to swallow down a laugh.

She continued her pattern, despite the villain's request. Several arrows later, she reached back to her quiver to find that she was out. She sighed, her head resting against the rock wall. It was all up to Negaduck alone, now.

As if in response to that thought, she heard an engine start. This was followed immediately by a flurry of commotion down below. Unable to resist, she leaned around—as best she could—the tunnel's exit. Her eyes almost doubled in size.

Negaduck, riding in one of Moliarty's drill cars, was on his way to the surface. She grimaced, her hand's balling into fists. He was leaving her! Stranding her!

But had she really expected anything different?

A loud _crack_ echoed about the cavern, and, more importantly, it sent Moliarty's men fleeing. Gosalyn curled herself into the wall. It was only a matter of time now. Either Moliarty would find her and make her a hostage—not for the first time in her life—or she would be lost forever.

She was being melodramatic. Obviously, Darkwing would find her. But how long would that take? With the rock volleys gone, Moliarty and his men obviously scrambling away to safety, it had gone rather quiet. And, like a slap in the face, she suddenly realized just how very tired she was. She stifled a yawn, rested her head, and allowed her eyes to slide closed. After all, what more could she do?

##

The sounds of karate yells and blows being landed woke her. Judging by the light now shining down through the escape hole Negaduck had made, she had slept the whole night through. The sounds below continued, and, if she wasn't mistaken, she knew the voice behind those yells.

Gosalyn leaned around the tunnel's entrance, a smile breaking out over her face. Darkwing and Launchpad were now finishing up the last of Moliarty's men, trussing them up—like they had already done with the criminal.

"Darkwing!" she called.

Instantly, the Mighty Masked Mallard's eyes snapped up, clear relief spreading over his features. Using his gun, he grappled up to her, embracing her in a tight hug.

"Gosalyn! I was so worried about you! Your ankle! What happened?"

"Broke when I fell, I think. How did you find me?"

"Weirdest thing. Negaduck broke through the surface, but all he did was set a controlled fire—if you can believe it—and left a note. He was gone before we got to the scene. I knew you still had to be underground, and I knew that my girl wasn't going to stay put, so LP and I investigated. And here you are!"

He punctuated that last sentence with another rib-crushing hug. She smiled and gently disentangled herself from her father.

"What did the note say?"

Scratching his head just under his fedora, he shrugged. He reached into one of his cape's pockets, withdrawing a folded sheet of paper. On the top fold, clearly visible, was "Quiverwing."

"You didn't read it?" she asked, taking it.

"I'm a hero. We don't read other people's mail. Federal offense."

Gosalyn fought down an eye roll and unfolded the note.

 _Hey Kid, I have a reputation to uphold. But I figured even Dipwing couldn't miss a giant hole and fire. If you're reading this, he found you. Nice talking with you, Gos._

It was signed, simply, "Negaduck." But that wasn't what caught her eyes and her breath.

 _Gos_. He knew. He knew who she was. That meant… well, that meant a lot. And she was still alive. Still alive.

"What did it say?" Darkwing said, beginning to reach for the note.

But Gosalyn balled it up in her fist, shoving it into the hidden pocket of her cape—even Darkwing hadn't been able to find it.

"Just, you know, Negaduck stuff."

Darkwing clearly didn't believe her, judging by his stare. But, in the end, he shrugged.

"Let's go home."

She smiled. "Sounds great."

* * *

End Notes: Okay, so I took some inspiration from a couple of things. First, the newer Darkwing Comics—the first four issues. The way that Negaduck seemed so unwilling to string up Gosalyn with Darkwing. Secondly, I just finished a great series by RebellingStagnation on AO3 called the Geronimo Series. Her relationship between Negaduck and Gosalyn was the inspiration to some of some of my subtleties as well. Finally, any guesses on who the friend of a friend was? Thanks for reading!


End file.
